It’s been a helluva of a week for me—it’s no joke coping up with work backlog after a week of getting sick. Anyway, I’ve been going through my honeymoon photos and thought this might be interesting to share.

Marc and I spent a four-days-three-nights trip to Hongkong for our honeymoon, a gift courtesy of an uncle who’s a pilot for the Philippine’s flag carrier. I’ve been to Hongkong before with my late grandma, but I don’t see any point of complaining about seeing the place again for free!

Anyway, here are a few ideas to keep in mind in order to get the most out of your trip.

Bring a camera. Duh. It’s your honeymoon. Wouldn’t you want to have some keepsake?

Keep spare batteries and extra memory cards at hand. It really sucks when you run out of batteries or card space just when you see something worth taking a photo of. Happened to us more than once already 🙁 Besides, batteries sold at theme parks or tourist spots are ludicrously expensive. If you don’t want to bring them along from the Philippines, you can always get some from a convenience store. I ran out of batteries when we were in Ocean Park (I totally forgot to bring the spare I bought from a store near our hotel), so I had to buy some at the theme park for more than twice the price.

Put all toiletries, liquids, or whatever that can be used as a make-shift bomb in your check-in bags. Airport security will require you to do so. It’s a real hassle stuffing those things up in a meticulously prepared luggage.

Do a little research on the place you’re heading for. Additional knowledge could never go amiss, especially if you’re visiting a different country. There are some things that may be acceptable in our culture, but in some, they’re not. My husband and I should have known better than to ask for cold drinking water from a Hongkong waiter—we usually ended up with warm water or nasty snarls from the waiter. As it turned out, drinking water is precious in Hongkong—you don’t ask for it, you pay for it.

Be careful of what you say. I have to admit it’s really tempting to utter wisecracks and snide remarks in front of people of a different language. But be careful. You never know if one of them understands Filipino 😀

Make sure to bring extra money or a backup credit card. Even if you tell yourself you’re only there to enjoy the sights, trust me, you’d eventually end up spending on souvenirs and pasalubong to bring home to family and friends back in the Philippines. You don’t necessarily have to spend all the money, but it’s better than worrying if you could get back to your own country when you start running out of cash.

Keep your passports in a safe place with you at all times. It’s your only way of identifying yourself in a foreign country. Call me paranoid, but we didn’t want to spend our honeymoon in a jail cell in case something bad happens and we couldn’t produce any form of identification. Make sure you keep your passports safe though (Marc and I borrowed my dad’s belt bag so we could bring the passports along without worrying about accidentally leaving it somewhere), or you could end up spending the rest of your trip at the Philippine Embassy.

Don’t be shy, and ask strangers for help. I know it sounds so tourisy, but you need to be friendlier to the locals and your tourist group (if you’re part of a tour). The Hongkong locals were nice enough to point us in the right directions when we were wandering off in the shopping district on our own, and were game enough to take our picture for us (though most of the time we asked the people with us on the tour to take our photos).

If in doubt, don’t. It doesn’t hurt to be adventurous (especially in food choices), but if you have a weak stomach, it might do you more harm than good.

Avoid “doing it” like a pair of hamsters in heat. Unless you’ve really planned out your honeymoon so you could consummate your relationship as often as you breathe, you might want to save your energy for your tour. Set tours strictly follow schedules, and you might miss (and waste money) the tour if you’re too tired to drag yourself out of bed. I know it’s hard to deny the “thrill,” but hey, don’t forget that you’ll have an entire lifetime together to do that 😉